Report

Young People and Gambling 2022: Official statistics

Gambling Commission report produced by Ipsos on young people and their gambling behaviour, attitudes and awareness in 2022.

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Published
10 November 2022

Last updated
9 November 2022 - Changes

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Contents

• Young People and Gambling 2022: Official statistics

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• Executive summary
• • Introduction
  • Headline statistics
  • Presentation and interpretation of data
  • Acknowledgements
• Young people’s active involvement in gambling
• • Summary
  • Young people's active involvement in gambling
  • Variations in active involvement in gambling
  • Variations in active involvement in types of gambling activities
  • Prevalence of non-problem, at risk or problem gambling
  • Problem gambling by gender
  • Problem gambling by age
  • Problem gambling by ethnicity
• Experience of gambling
• • Summary
  • Overall gambling experience
  • Overall gambling experience in the last 12 months
  • Variations in gambling experience
• The Impact of gambling on young people
• • Summary
  • How gambling impacts on relations with friends and family
  • How gambling makes young people feel
  • The impact of gambling on sleep
  • The impact of gambling on spending
  • The impact of gambling on schoolwork
  • Experience and impact of family members’ gambling
• Online gambling
• • Summary
  • Young people’s active involvement in online gambling
  • Overall experience of online gambling
  • Online gambling using parent's or guardian's accounts
  • Awareness and use of in-game items in video games
• National Lottery play
• • Summary
  • Young people’s active involvement with lottery products
  • Wider experience of lottery games
  • Buying a National Lottery draw ticket or scratchcard
  • Who young people are with when playing a National Lottery product?
• Games and gaming machines
• • Summary
  • Young people’s active involvement in games and gaming machines
  • Overall experience of games and gaming machines play
  • Who is with young people when they play gaming machines?
  • Types of gaming machines
  • Play in an adults-only area
• The Context for gambling participation
• • Summary
  • Setting gambling in the context of other risk-taking behaviours
  • Setting gambling in the context of other activities
  • Reasons why young people gamble
  • Why young people don’t gamble
  • Who young people were with when they gambled
• Attitudes towards and exposure to gambling
• • Summary
  • Young people’s views on gambling
  • Feeling informed about gambling
  • Being stopped from gambling
  • Young people’s exposure to gambling adverts and promotions and frequency of exposure
  • Content of gambling adverts and promotions seen
  • Whether ever prompted to gamble by adverts and promotions
  • Following gambling companies on social media
• Appendices
• • Applying the DSM-IV-MR-J problem gambler screen
  • Research design
  • Sample profile
• List of gambling activities and definitions
• • List of gambling activities
  • Definitions

Variations in gambling experience

The overall proportion of young people who experienced gambling in the last 12 months is consistent by age and gender. However, following the pattern for active involvement in gambling, those who had seen their family members gamble (67 percent), were more likely to have experience of gambling in the last 12 months compared with those who had not (42 percent).

Looking at the different gambling activities, girls were more likely to report experience of:

• arcade games such as penny pusher or claw grab machines (37 percent of girls compared with 32 percent of boys)
• bingo at somewhere other than a bingo club (10 percent of girls compared with 7 percent of boys).

While boys were more likely to have experienced online gambling activities such as:

• placing a bet on esports (5 percent of boys compared with 1 percent of girls)
• playing casino games online (3 percent of boys compared with 1 percent of girls).

Boys' experience of online gambling reflects findings shared in the report which highlight that they were more likely to play games on their phone, iPad, laptop or on a console in their spare time than girls (57 percent compared to 12 percent) and were more aware of aspects of online gaming, such as paying for or betting with in-game items.

By age, older groups were more likely to have experienced National Lottery scratchcard play in the last 12 months than younger age groups (9 percent of 14 to 16 year olds compared with 7 percent of 11 to 13 year olds), and played cards for money with friends or family (10 percent of 14 to 16 year olds compared with 7 percent of 11 to 13 year olds). In contrast 11 to 13 year olds were more likely to play bingo at somewhere other than a bingo club (10 percent of 11 to 13 year olds compared with 7 percent of 14 to 16 year olds).

Those who had seen family members gamble were more likely to have experienced most forms of gambling activities in the last 12 months than young people who had not seen their family gamble. This mirrors active involvement in gambling in the last 12 months; with the differences most notable for activities where family members would be present such as placing a bet with friends or family (31 percent compared with 15 percent of those who had not seen family members gamble).

Differences by ethnicity are only notable in the higher rates of experience of arcade gaming machines: 38 percent of white 11 to 16 year olds compared with 26 percent of young people from black and ethnic minority groups.

Previous section
Overall gambling experience in the last 12 months

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Last updated: 9 November 2022

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